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“An oath?” The captain looked perplexed.

“Look, he gave me a brooch,” the fisherman went on. “He told me to wear it in battle so that he would know me.” And he produced the brooch from the pouch on his belt.

There was silence. The captain gazed at the brooch. The fellow might be only a simple villager, but an oath was a sacred thing. As for an oath to a chief . . . The brooch, he could see, was Cassivelaunus’. He looked at Cartimandua. She had gone an ashen colour. He looked at the girl. A pretty little thing. But there was nothing to be done about that now. The bargain was off.

He grunted irritably, then pointed to another man. “You. You’re in charge instead. Get going.” Then he was gone.

As the fisherman watched the boat with his wife and children go off, he felt a sense of melancholy, and yet also of satisfaction. He knew his little son could see that he was not as strong as other men. He was glad that he should have heard, in front of everyone, about his oath to the great British chief.

The boats went slowly. As they rounded the bend, Segovax gazed at the forces gathering there. They had been coming fast. Already there was line upon line of chariots; behind the palisades were scores of little fires around which groups of men gathered. “They’re saying that when Cassivelaunus arrives tomorrow,” his father had told him, “there may be as many as four thousand chariots.” How proud he was to think of his father as part of that great array.

They left the ford and the druid’s island behind, went southwards for another half-mile and then the river curved again, to the right, so that the boy could no longer see the battle lines. On each side were mud flats and islands, green and heavy with willow trees.

Branwen, leaning her head against him, had fallen asleep in the sun. His mother, staring out at the water, was silent.

As the river meandered through a broad, level valley of meadows and greensward dotted with trees, Segovax realized now that the river was flowing against them, downstream. There was no longer any tidal flow in from the estuary. They had passed out of reach of the sea.

They camped under willow trees that night, then proceeded on their way joined by the folk from another hamlet. Once more they passed a quiet sunny day working their way slowly up the pleasant stream. Nobody noticed that, as evening fell, a new air of excitement came over Segovax. How could they guess that now, at last, it was time for his secret plan.

Segovax crept through the darkness. There was no moon, but the stars were bright. Nobody stirred. The night was warm. They had made camp that night on a long, thin island in the stream. As the sun set, the sky had had that hard, red colour that promises a fine day to come. Everybody was tired by the journey. They had all made a big fire, eaten and then lain down wherever they were to sleep under the stars.

He heard an owl. Moving carefully, his spear in one hand, he made his way down to the water’s edge.

The people from the other hamlet had brought with them two small coracles, one of which had a pointed prow like a canoe. The moment he had seen it, he had known that this was his chance. It was lying on the muddy bank now. It was so light, he found that he could easily drag it with one hand. He had just begun to slide it into the water when he heard a familiar patter of little feet on the mud behind him. It was Branwen. He sighed. She never slept.

“What are you doing?”

“Sssh.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Father.”

“To fight?”

“Yes.”

She greeted this tremendous news with silence, but only for a moment.

“Take me with you.”

“I can’t. Stay here.”

“No!”

“Branwen, you know you can’t come.”

“No I don’t.”

“You don’t know how to fight. You’re too little.”

Even in the dark, he could see her face begin to pucker and swell and her hands bunch with rage.

“I’m coming.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’ll wake everyone.”

“I don’t care. I’ll cry.” This was a very real threat.

“Please, Branwen. Give me a kiss.”

“No!”

He hugged her. She hit him. Then, before she could wake anyone, he pushed the coracle into the water and stepped inside it. Moments later he was paddling swiftly out of sight, down the stream into the darkness.

He had done it. Ever since the news of the invasion had come, just before the druid had offered the shield to the river, he had secretly planned this expedition. Day after day he had practised with his spear until he achieved an accuracy that few adults could equal. And now his chance had come at last. He was going to fight beside his father. He can’t very well send me away if I suddenly arrive just as battle is beginning, he thought.

The night was long. With the current flowing behind him, and with the little paddle to help, he was able to slip down the river at two or three times the speed the boats had made coming up. In the darkness the banks seemed to race by.

But he was only nine. After an hour his arms felt tired; after two they were aching. He pressed on, though. Two hours later, in the deepest night, he began to long for sleep. He had never been up so late. Once or twice his head fell forward and he came awake again with a start.

Perhaps, he told himself, if I was just to lie down for a little while, but an instinct also warned him: do that and you will sleep until midmorning. He found that if he kept the vision of his father before him, it gave him strength. In this way, resting his arms now and then, and thinking always, hour after long hour, of his father waiting for him upon the battlefield, he was given the power to press on. They would fight together, side by side. Perhaps they would die together. It seemed to him that this was all in the world he desired.

As the dawn began to lighten the sky, he entered the start of the river’s tidal flow. Luckily, it was on the ebb, and so it carried him swiftly down, towards Londinos and the sea.

By the time the sun was up, the river was getting much wider. An hour later and he was approaching a familiar bend. Even his lack of sleep was forgotten in the excitement as he began to turn it and came in sight of the druid’s island, less than a mile ahead. Then he gasped in amazement.

In front of him, the Romans were crossing the river.

The force that Caesar had assembled for the conquest of Britain was formidable indeed. Five disciplined legions – some twenty-five thousand men, with two thousand cavalry. He had lost only a few men in the south-eastern peninsula of Kent.

The alliance of British chiefs was already beginning to crumble. Caesar’s intelligence was excellent. He knew that if he could break Cassivelaunus now, a number of important chiefs would probably start to come over to him.

But this river crossing was a serious matter. The day before a captured Celt had told them about the stakes in the riverbed. The palisade opposite was stout. The Romans had one great advantage, however.

“The trouble with the Celts,” Caesar had remarked to one of his staff, “is that their strategy doesn’t match their tactics.” So long as the Celts harried his line with their chariots in a game of hit and run, it was almost impossible for the Romans to defeat them. Given time, they could wear him down. Their strategy, therefore, should have been to play a waiting game. “But the fools want a pitched battle,” he observed. And here the Romans would usually win.

It was a simple question of discipline and armaments. When the Roman legions locked their shields together in a great square, or, in a smaller detachment, locked their shields over their heads to form the ancient equivalent of a tank, they were quite impregnable to the Celtic infantry, and even the wheeling chariots found it very hard to break them. Looking across the river, therefore, to where the Celtic horde was drawn up on open ground, Caesar knew that his only serious obstacle was the river. Without more ado, therefore, he gave the order: “Advance.”

There is only one place to ford the River and even that is difficult.

So Caesar wrote in his history. There was, of course, nothing intrinsically difficult about the ford, but Caesar, as a good politician and general, was not likely to admit that.

I at once ordered the cavalry to advance and the legions to follow. Only their heads were above water, but they pushed on with such speed and vigour that infantry and cavalry were able to make the assault together.

It was hardly surprising that neither Julius Caesar nor anyone else noticed a little coracle, several hundred yards upstream, beaching on the river’s muddy northern bank.

By the time he found himself on solid turf, Segovax was a small brown figure caked in mud. He did not care. He had made it.

The Celtic line was less than a mile away. How splendid it looked. He scanned the thousands of figures for a sight of his father, but could not see him. Dragging his spear and making a squelching sound as he walked, he slowly advanced. The river was full of Romans now. The first formations were grouping on the northern bank. Huge concerted shouts arose from the massed Celtic forces. From the Romans, silence. Still the boy moved on.

And then it began.

Segovax had never seen a battle before. He had no conception, therefore, of the incredible confusion. Suddenly everywhere men were running, whilst chariots wheeled about at such speed that it seemed as though in a matter of seconds they might bear down across the meadows upon him. The Romans’ armour seemed to glint and flash like some terrible, fiery creature. The noise, even from where he stood, was tremendous. Amidst the din, he heard men, grown men, screaming with cries of agony dreadful to hear.

Above all, he had had no idea how big everyone would seem. When a Roman cavalryman suddenly appeared and cantered across the meadow a hundred yards from him, he was like a giant. The boy, clutching his spear, felt completely puny.

He stopped. The battle, now half a mile away, was edging towards him. Three chariots rushed out, straight at him, then careered away. He had not the faintest idea where, in this terrifying mêlée, his father might be. He found that he was trembling.

Now half a dozen horsemen, all together, were chasing a Celtic chariot that was wheeling about only two hundred yards away.

A galloping cavalry charge is a fearsome thing to behold. Even trained infantry, formed in squares, usually shiver. An unruly crowd, faced with charging horsemen, will always flee. Small wonder, then, that the boy, suddenly aware that an entire army was moving towards him, should have found himself so frightened that he could not go on. He started to back away. Then he fled.

For weeks he had prepared. All night he had paddled downriver to be with his father. And now here he was, only hundreds of yards away from him, unable to run to his side.

He stood, shaking, by the riverbank for another two hours. Below him, beached on the mud flat, was the little coracle into which, if the battle came closer, he was ready to jump. White with fear, he felt terribly cold. The day seemed to echo like a nightmare. As he gazed at the huge battle going on across the meadows, he realized with horror: I must be a coward.

“If only,” he prayed to the gods, “my father does not see me, a coward, now.”

But there was no danger of that. Upon the Romans’ third rush his father had fallen, sword in hand, as the gods had revealed that he would.

Segovax remained there all day. By mid-afternoon the battle was over. The Celts, brutally broken, had fled northwards, pursued some distance by Roman cavalry, who mercilessly hacked down all they could. By early evening, the victors had set up camp just to the east, near the twin hillocks of Londinos. The battlefield – a huge area strewn with broken chariots, abandoned weapons and bodies – was empty and eerily quiet. It was upon this desolate field that, at last, Segovax ventured forth.

Only once or twice before had he seen human death. He was not prepared, therefore, for the strange greyness, and stiffening heaviness of the corpses. Some were horribly mutilated; many had missing limbs. The smell of death was beginning to permeate the place. The bodies were everywhere: in the meadow, around the stakes and palisades: in the water around the druid’s island. How should he find his father amongst all these, if he was there? Could it be he would not recognize him?

The sun was already reddening when he came upon him near the water. He saw him at once, because he was lying on his back, his sweet, thin face gazing up at the sky, his mouth, wide open, giving him a vacant, pathetic air. His flesh was blue-grey. A short, broad Roman sword had opened a frightful gash in his side.

The boy knelt beside him. A red heat seemed to rise in his throat, choking him and filling his eyes with hot tears. He put his hands out and touched his father’s beard.

And was so racked with sobs that he was not aware he was no longer alone.

It was just a small party of Roman soldiers, accompanied by a centurion. They had come to search for any fallen Roman weapons. Seeing the lone figure, they walked towards him.

“A scavenger,” one of the legionaries remarked in disgust. They were only twenty feet away when the boy, hearing the clinking of their armour, turned and looked at them with terror.

Roman soldiers. The evening sun was glowing on their breastplates. They were going to kill him. Or at least take him prisoner. He glanced round frantically. There was nowhere to run to. He had only the river behind him. Should he make a dash for that? Try to swim away? They would catch him before he could get into the current. Segovax glanced down. His father’s sword was lying beside him where he had fallen. He stooped, picked it up, and faced the approaching centurion.

If he’s going to kill me, he decided, I may as well fight.

The sword was heavy, but he held it firmly, his young face set. The centurion, frowning slightly as he continued to advance, indicated that he should put the weapon down. Segovax shook his head. The centurion was very close now. Calmly he drew his own short sword. Segovax’s eyes grew large. He prepared to fight, hardly knowing what to do. And then the centurion struck.